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BUFFALO, N.Y., June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — M&T Bank announced it will be the first U.S. bank to team up with MagnusCards™ by Magnusmode, a free app dedicated to making the world a more accessible place for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. The collaboration will create new digital guides that provide visual cues and step-by-step instructions to help people access fundamental banking services. Available through the MagnusCards app, M&T Bank’s digital “Card Decks” are designed to increase banking accessibility for the autism and disability communities and are offered free to users.

“Launching M&T Bank’s MagnusCards will help us create a more inclusive, welcoming bank and expand our capabilities to meet the unique needs of our diverse community of customers,” said Sonny Sonnenstein, Chief Information Officer for Consumer, Business and Digital Banking at M&T Bank. “We are excited to work with Magnusmode – not only because they’re an inspiring local startup, but also because their product is incredibly intuitive and well-designed to support our customers.”

Digitalized Guidance Through Storytelling
Using digitalized “Card Decks,” the MagnusCards™ app guides users through tasks and activities that might otherwise feel challenging or overwhelming. As Magusmode’s first U.S. bank partner, M&T Bank is offering an expanding “life skills library,” which provides practical guidance through storytelling Card Decks helping users navigate daily tasks and experiences, such as making ATM transactions and using a debit card for purchases. It uses applied behavior analysis methods, offering prompts and positive reinforcement to support experiential learning.

In addition to banking and money management, the app provides accessibility support for public transportation, healthcare, shopping, school and other places and activities people need to access as part of their daily lives. The app’s users include people with autism, down syndrome, acquired brain injury, dementia, ADHD and other cognitive disabilities.

“Confusing or complex services can create barriers for people with autism and other cognitive disabilities. Our assistive technology helps companies eliminate those barriers and welcome, support and enable people on the autism or disability spectrums,” said Magnusmode Founder and President Nadia Hamilton. “In M&T Bank, we found partners who understand the importance of leveraging technology to create practical tools that improve the everyday experiences of all people.”

Employee Advocacy Led the Way
M&T’s Disability Advocacy Network (DAN), an employee-led group that advocates for the needs of people with disabilities, identified MagnusCards as a potential opportunity for the bank, and  guided its implementation and launch, working alongside M&T’s technology team and colleagues throughout the bank.

“Our MagnusCards will help people count money, use their debit card to purchase things, withdraw cash from an ATM or teller and deposit cash and checks into an ATM,” said David Zolnowski, president of DAN’s Western New York chapter and a parent-advocate whose son has Down syndrome. “Each of these essential guides will be extremely helpful to people with disabilities.”

Disabled Family Members Helped Develop the Product
WNY DAN member Stephanie Tisdale, a vice president and strategic initiatives lead at M&T, also played an important role in launching M&T’s MagnusCards. She asked her 17-year-old brother, Diarllo, who is on the autism spectrum, to serve as the “acting talent” in the production of the visuals for the Card Decks. While the ask was a bit outside his comfort zone, he jumped at the opportunity when he learned how his participation would help other people with disabilities.

“The Disability Advocacy Network wanted real people involved. We didn’t want actors, but people who would directly benefit from our collaboration with Magnusmode,” Tisdale said. “My brother is never one to be the center of attention, but when he heard it would help people, he was all over it. It was inspiring to see Diarllo contribute to something so important. I want my brother to have the opportunity to live independently, to be able to access the services he needs and to feel like he belongs. The MagnusCards app will be so empowering for him and all people with cognitive disabilities.”

A New Wave of Digital Banking Tools
M&T’s MagnusCards launch comes amid the bank’s ongoing push to provide new and innovative digital tools and resources to help customers manage their money. A few highlights include:

• Money Smart’s Cash Flow – M&T has expanded M&T Money Smart, the budgeting and money management tool available through its online and mobile banking platforms, with new features that help customers plan for the future. Cash Flow is a tool that allows users to visualize how money moves into and out of their accounts each month. It uses advanced analytics informed by past transactions to provide users with a simple display of their daily spending power.   
• Money Smart’s Net Worth and The Goals – Money Smart was also updated with a Net Worth tool to help users track financial worth in real time. It combines checking and savings accounts, retirement accounts, property, investments, bonds, debt and more to show a visualization of net worth and how it changes over time. The Goals tool in Money Smart helps users achieve savings, debt payoff and retirement goals. It creates timelines and visualizations that are automatically updated as users put money toward a savings goal or pay down debt.
• Financial Education Center – M&T created an online Financial Education Center to help its customers and communities access educational resources that deepen their financial literacy. Its self-directed learning materials are organized into life-stage educational bundles – such as Banking for Families, Becoming a Homeowner, Banking for Entrepreneurs and others – to help people find the insights and information they need for their moment in life. The Financial Education Center can be visited at mtb.com/financialeducation.

About M&T Bank
M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE: MTB) is a financial holding company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. M&T’s principal banking subsidiary, M&T Bank, operates banking offices in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Trust-related services are provided by M&T’s Wilmington Trust-affiliated companies and by M&T Bank.

About Magnusmode
Founded in Toronto, Ontario, Magnusmode was a 2018 winner of the Buffalo-based startup competition 43North. The company is currently based in 43North’s accelerator and office space at Seneca One in downtown Buffalo, where M&T recently launched its Tech Hub.

Media Contacts:

New York Media (excluding NYC & LI), National Media and Trade Publications:
Julia Berchou
(716) 842-5385
[email protected]

New Jersey, Connecticut and New York City Media:
David Samberg
(201) 368-4515
[email protected]

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, DC Media:
Scott Graham
(410) 244-4097
[email protected]

© 2021 M&T Bank. Member FDIC.

 

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SOURCE M&T Bank

CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Ally Lending, the personal lending arm of Ally Bank, a subsidiary of Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY), continues to build on its legacy in the consumer healthcare lending market – serving more than 150 Ideal Image points of care across the U.S. During the past five years, the number of applications submitted by Ideal Image clients to Ally Lending grew thirteenfold.

In 2016, Ally Lending, previously known as Health Credit Services, launched its financing in 10 Ideal Image locations. Primarily known for its wellness and aesthetic services – including laser hair removal, body sculpting, Botox®, and skin rejuvenation services – Ideal Image is also recognized for its commitment to accessibility and affordability. With this mission in mind, Ally Lending and Ideal Image honed the financing program over the years to work even better for their clients’ wallets.

Fast-forward to 2021: demand for cosmetic procedures is on the rise¹ – making responsible pay-over-time options essential to good business. With Ally Lending as an option at Ideal Image, clients can quickly move forward with treatment while staying safely within their budget – effectively eliminating the uncomfortable cost conversation.

“Dollar signs can cause people to delay health or wellness procedures they need or want,” said Hans Zandhuis, head of Ally Lending. “Financing can help by giving people an easier, more digestible way to pay.”

“Ally Lending was there for me during the pandemic when I needed a personal loan to pay for services that my mother and I needed,” said a client at Ideal Image. “We are fortunate enough that I qualified for a low APR. That’s when I knew Ally Lending had my back.”

Beyond the day-to-day financing routine, Ally Lending also provides Ideal Image with a host of business services, including client retention and new customer acquisition marketing campaigns, as well as personalized, dedicated customer service support. These efforts help keep clients engaged and returning for additional services.

“As demand for personal care, wellness services and aesthetics continues to increase, we’ll be here to support them with flexible, personalized payment terms,” said David Prokupek, CEO of Ideal Image. “No matter your financial picture – we’re committed to helping you look and feel your most confident.”

To learn more, please visit allylending.com. Ally Lending loans are subject to credit review and approval.

About Ally Financial

Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a digital financial services company committed to its promise to “Do It Right” for its consumer, commercial and corporate customers. Ally is composed of an industry-leading independent auto finance and insurance operation, an award-winning digital direct bank (Ally Bank, Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender, which offers mortgage lending, point-of-sale personal lending, and a variety of deposit and other banking products), a corporate finance business for equity sponsors and middle-market companies, and securities brokerage and investment advisory services. A relentless ally for all things money, Ally helps people save well and earn well, so they can spend for what matters. For more information, please visit www.ally.com and follow @allyfinancial.

For more information and disclosures about Ally, visit https://www.ally.com/#disclosures.

For further images and news on Ally, please visit http://media.ally.com.

About Ideal Image

Ideal Image is North America’s #1 aesthetics brand, making personal aesthetic and wellness services more affordable, accessible and effective than ever before. Ideal Image believes “confidence changes everything,” and its mission is to help people look and feel their best by taking a holistic, personalized approach to health and wellness from the inside out. Ideal Image operates as a direct-to-consumer medical aesthetics brand powered by its national tele-aesthetics platform where guests can conduct free virtual private consultations from anywhere and receive services at any of Ideal Image’s rapidly growing point of care network locations across North America. Ideal Image’s expert team of 800+ Medical Pros deliver clients real, life-changing results having performed over 20 million FDA-cleared aesthetic treatments, including laser hair removal, body sculpting, Botox®, and leading-edge anti-aging services all backed by a Lifetime Guarantee Membership. The company is headquartered in Tampa, FL.  For more information, please visit www.idealimage.com, https://www.instagram.com/idealimage/, https://twitter.com/idealimage and https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideal-image.  

Contact:

Marlee Murphy

Ally Lending Public Relations
[email protected]

¹ American Society of Plastic Surgeons, “American Society of Plastic Surgeons Unveils COVID-19’s Impact and Pent-Up Patient Demand Fueling the Industry’s Current Post-Pandemic Boom”

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SOURCE Ally Financial

SYDNEY, June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Kazia Therapeutics Limited (NASDAQ: KZIA; ASX: KZA), an oncology-focused drug development company, is pleased to announce that it has entered a collaboration with the Joan & Sanford I Weill Medical College of Cornell University in the United States, to launch a phase II clinical study investigating the use of Kazia’s investigational new drug, paxalisib, in combination with ketogenesis, for glioblastoma.

Key Points

• Research by Professor Lew Cantley, who discovered the PI3K pathway, suggests that ketogenesis may enhance the activity of PI3K inhibitors in glioblastoma, with impressive preclinical data previously published in Nature
• Ketogenesis represents an alternative biochemical mechanism in which the body is fueled by fats and proteins rather than by glucose; it occurs in states such as starvation, and also in response to a ‘ketogenic diet’
• Data from this study has the potential to significantly enhance the activity of paxalisib in glioblastoma, and to minimize certain side effects, including hyperglycemia (high blood sugar)
• Dr Howard Fine, founding Director of the Brain Tumor Center at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, will serve as Principal Investigator; Professor Cantley will be a scientific advisor to the study
• Kazia will provide support including study drug and a financial grant

Dr Fine, Principal Investigator to the study, commented, “glioblastoma remains an immensely challenging disease, and we need the most potent array of tools at our disposal in order to treat it. My lab has extensive experience of translational research in this area, and I am excited to explore the potential for a brain-penetrant PI3K inhibitor in combination with ketogenesis.”

Professor Cantley, who is a scientific advisor to the study, added, “the interplay between the PI3K pathway, insulin signaling, and tumor growth has been a focus of scientific interest for some time now. Our research clearly shows the synergistic benefits of PI3K inhibition and ketosis in animal models of glioblastoma. This is an important project, designed to verify these laboratory findings in the human setting.”

Ketogenesis and Glioblastoma

Cells in the human body generally rely on glucose as ‘fuel’ for their energy requirements. However, when glucose is not readily available, cells can metabolise fats and proteins to provide energy. The fats and proteins are broken down to an intermediate form known as ketones, and so this biochemical pathway is referred to as ‘ketogenesis’.

Unlike healthy cells, most tumour cells are poorly able to metabolise ketones, and so depend on glucose for their energy needs. Consequently, many researchers have experimented with ‘ketogenic diets’ as a potential treatment for cancer.^[1]

In addition, scientists in Professor Cantley’s lab have shown that insulin has the potential to counteract the anti-tumor effects of PI3K inhibitors.^[2] Insulin is a hormone produced by the body in response to high levels of glucose. When the body is in a state of ketosis, glucose is absent, and so insulin falls to very low levels.

For these reasons, there is a sound rationale to explore a combination of ketogenic diet and paxalisib in glioblastoma. In this study, patients will also receive metformin, a common anti-diabetic drug, which will help to further lower insulin levels.

Clinical Trial Design

This study will comprise two arms. The first will contain patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who have unmethylated MGMT promotor status. These patients are essentially resistant to temozolomide, the existing standard-of-care therapy. The second arm will contain patients with recurrent disease, who have progressed after taking standard-of-care therapy.

In each arm, paxalisib will be combined with metformin and with a ketogenic diet. The diet will be overseen by expert clinical dieticians to ensure that it is scientifically appropriate and that patients are compliant.

An initial cohort of approximately sixteen patients will be recruited to each arm. If there are signals of activity in a given arm, that arm will be expanded to approximately thirty patients. The primary endpoint will be progression-free survival at six months (PFS6). In addition to efficacy and safety, the study will examine a range of metabolic and pharmacodynamic biomarkers to help inform future research and clinical practice. The study is expected to take approximately two years to complete.

Dr Howard Fine will serve as Principal Investigator to the study. Dr Fine is the founding Director of the Brain Tumor Center at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Associate Director for Translational Research at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of neuro-oncology, with more than 30 years of experience in both laboratory and clinical research as well as in the care of patients with brain tumors. Dr Fine has built large multidisciplinary brain tumor programs at top academic institutions such as the Dana Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School and the National Institutes of Health, has cared for nearly 20,000 patients with brain and spinal cord tumors in his career, has conducted over 100 clinical trials, published over 250 papers and book chapters on brain tumors, and for over two decades has run a continuously operating translational genetic / molecular laboratory devoted to a better understanding of, and better therapies for, brain tumors.

Weill Cornell Medical Center

The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, known generally as Weill Cornell Medicine, and based in New York, NY, is the medical school of Cornell University, and is one of the leading medical research centers in the United States. Its notable alumni include Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Paxalisib Clinical Program

The initiation of this trial in glioblastoma brings the number of ongoing clinical studies of paxalisib in brain cancer to nine.

Next Steps

Recruitment to this study is expected to commence by the end of CY2021, subject to approval by Institutional Review Boards, FDA, and other authorities.

About Kazia Therapeutics Limited

Kazia Therapeutics Limited (NASDAQ: KZIA; ASX: KZA) is an oncology-focused drug development company, based in Sydney, Australia.

Our lead program is paxalisib, a brain-penetrant inhibitor of the PI3K / Akt / mTOR pathway, which is being developed to treat glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive form of primary brain cancer in adults. Licensed from Genentech in late 2016, paxalisib commenced recruitment to GBM AGILE, a pivotal study in glioblastoma, in January 2021. Eight additional studies are active in various forms of brain cancer. Paxalisib was granted Orphan Drug Designation for glioblastoma by the US FDA in February 2018, and Fast Track Designation for glioblastoma by the US FDA in August 2020. In addition, paxalisib was granted Rare Pediatric Disease Designation and Orphan Designation by the US FDA for DIPG in August 2020.

Kazia is also developing EVT801, a small-molecule inhibitor of VEGFR3, which was licensed from Evotec SE in April 2021. Preclinical data has shown EVT801 to be active against a broad range of tumour types and has provided compelling evidence of synergy with immuno-oncology agents. A phase I study is expected to begin in CY2021.

For more information, please visit www.kaziatherapeutics.com or follow us on Twitter @KaziaTx.

This document was authorized for release to the ASX by James Garner, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director.

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SOURCE Kazia Therapeutics Limited